The Black Friar

by S. G. MacLean

  Seeker was weary of the lawyer’s diatribes. ‘I know what you are, Ellingworth. You, and your like. Don’t hold your breath waiting for the state destroy itself. You’ll be deader than the monk of Blackfriars before that ever happens. Now, Samuel,’ he said, making it clear that he had nothing further to say to Elias, ‘I’d have a few words with that boy of yours.’

  Seeker dropped his helmet onto the table of the private booth at the back of the room, and settled himself on one of its benches. Samuel hastily ushered Gabriel over to join him, hobbling over himself a moment later with the warm tankard of spiced ale Grace had begun to prepare as soon as she’d seen Seeker come in.

  Once Samuel had left them, Seeker took a draught of his drink. There was no need for mind games with this boy, such as there had been with the ones he’d spoken to at the Three Nails. He knew Gabriel spoke the truth. ‘Lady Anne’s house,’ he said, and waited.

  Gabriel chewed at his lip a moment and took a deep breath. ‘She wanted me to show her cook how to prepare the beans – weigh them and roast them and grind them and boil them and all. You see, if you do them too hot for too long—’ But Seeker had held up a hand to stop him.

  ‘I’ll wager I’ll meet my maker before I ever need to know how a pot of that foul stuff comes to be.’ Gabriel’s colour rose and he looked at the table. Seeker took pity on him. ‘But tell me, has the fellow mastered it – Anne Winter’s cook – or do you still have to go to the house?’

  ‘Oh,’ Gabriel brightened, ‘he got it soon enough – not as good as Samuel, mind, but that’s to be expected.’

  ‘So you don’t go to the house any more.’

  The boy wriggled a little, uncomfortable. ‘Well, I do you see. Lady Anne – she can’t come to the coffee house, can she, for the beans? Especially after all that trouble after her husband died. No one likes to think of that. And Samuel doesn’t like the look of that steward fellow she has. Doesn’t want him sniffing in here.’

  ‘The man Richard?’

  ‘I think that’s what she calls him, but he looks like a rat, and Samuel says he’s damned – if you’ll pardon me – if the fellow wasn’t a freebooter for that Cardinal-Infanty or some such Spanish dirt.’

  Seeker suppressed a smile at the unfailing accuracy of Gabriel’s rendering of the old soldier’s views. ‘You do well to listen to Samuel,’ he said. ‘So you still take the beans there?’

  ‘Yes. And other things Grace sends now and again, receipts and the like for new beverages she’s come across. Lady Anne sent her back a book once.’

  ‘What kind of book?’

  Gabriel coloured again. ‘Couldn’t rightly make it out. Poems and stuff, I think. I’ll know by next year, Captain.’

  Seeker knew Grace was teaching the boy his letters. ‘You see that you do. Where do you go when you take things there?’

  ‘At first it was just the scullery, then right into the kitchen one cold day, for a warm and a cake the cook’s girl made.’ He traced his finger across the grain of the wood on the table. ‘Charity was nice. Is she the one you were talking about, Captain, that’s been taken?’

  ‘I think so, Gabriel. Do you know of where she might have gone? Who with?’

  The boy shook his head. ‘She wasn’t forward to talk to me, not like the market girls, but she was happy there, liked being with Lady Anne, you could tell that. You’ll find her, won’t you?’

  Seeker wasn’t in the business of making promises he couldn’t be sure of keeping. ‘I don’t know. But you keep your eyes open when you’re there. And you tell me if there’s anything you think I should know of. You know what I mean, don’t you?’

  A look of understanding flitted across Gabriel’s face that Seeker thought presaged the man he would be. ‘Yes, Captain, I know what you mean.’

  *

  Elias Ellingworth had left, as had most of Samuel’s customers, by the time Seeker had finished talking to Gabriel. Seeker took in the empty benches, the table cleared of cups and pipes, the news-sheets Grace was tidying. He might have been carrying the plague. He should have waited until Samuel was ready to close up.

  ‘Nice to get to our beds a bit earlier tonight,’ Samuel said. ‘Sometimes you’d think they had nowhere to go.’

  Seeker placed his empty tankard on the counter and nodded his thanks to Grace before putting his helmet back on and going out into the street. He craved his own bed in the spartan room on Knight Ryder Street more than he did the more comfortable small apartment set aside for his use in Whitehall. For a time, he had spent almost all his time at Whitehall, as if the surroundings of that life might silence the echoes of the other which he strove to forget, but eventually, something in the city, its narrow lanes, secret gardens, unexpected brooks and gutters even, had called to him, and he felt himself more and more often drawn here.

  There was little light to be seen as he passed by the end of Dove Court, but he was certain that Elias would be up still, committing his latest outrage to paper, thinking to bring down the state built by Ironsides with the force of his pen. And yet, despite what Seeker had so roundly asserted to the lawyer, they both knew that Elias’s words could be as insidious to the fabric of the government as ivy to the bricks of a house. They would creep, and find their way through gaps so tiny they could hardly be seen by those not looking, start to tug at that fabric, fray and unsettle it as ivy would the wall, if no one was watching. But Damian Seeker was watching, and should Maria’s brother or his kind begin to trouble the state more than the state could control, then they would have to be crushed, cut down, their very roots removed from the places they had got their foothold, for otherwise, eventually, the state would not stand.

  He had almost reached the small alleyway at the end of the house on Knight Ryder Street when he saw her, waiting in a doorway across the street, like a wraith, or worse. When she saw that he had seen her, she came quickly over to him.

  He pulled her out of the lamplight to the end of the alleyway at the side of the house. ‘What in God’s name are you doing here at this time of the night?’

  Maria bridled. ‘It is not the first time . . .’ Her eyes were filling and he cursed his temper.

  He softened his voice. ‘I know it’s not the first time, but you shouldn’t come here without warning, without it being arranged. If you were seen . . .’

  ‘Seen? Damian, even to you, I think I am invisible.’

  He put a hand up to brush back a lock of hair that had fallen over her forehead. ‘Invisible? You? Never.’ He pressed her against the wall and kissed her, before pulling away. ‘But we should not be seen like this.’ He took her hand and led her halfway down the passageway to the door that opened into his solitary dwelling.

  Little moonlight fell through the room’s one small window that in the daytime, when Seeker was hardly ever there to see it, looked into a high-walled backyard and herb garden. Seeker made his way over to the mantel above the fireplace and lit a lamp, then put flame to the fire his landlady had set in the hearth.

  He sat down on the narrow bed, removed his helmet and rubbed a hand over weary eyes. ‘Why have you come here, Maria?’

  ‘Why? Can you ask that? Are you truly asking me that?’

  ‘It is not . . . you should not . . .’

  ‘What? I have not seen you for nigh on two weeks, apart from that night you came to our home and practically threatened to arrest Elias’s friend simply for being there, for speaking to me.’

  ‘I shouldn’t have done that.’

  ‘No, you shouldn’t have. But at least – at least it showed you had some feeling for me.’

  He paused in the easing off of his jacket. ‘Some feeling? Dear God, Maria, all the feeling I have is for you. The only reason I know I have a heart at all is from the ache you have made in it.’

  She crossed from beside the door to kneel in front of him, took his hands in hers. ‘But why? Why should there be an ache and not joy? I love you, Damian. I will offer you, give you, everything I have, everything I am, and I as
k nothing of you in return other than that sometimes, for a few hours, you will let yourself be mine.’

  He shook his head. ‘We can’t, Maria, we should never have begun.’

  She dropped his hands in anger and disbelief. ‘For God’s sake, why? Why should we not be happy as others are? I don’t ask to be your wife – I will not be anyone’s wife. I don’t ask that we share a roof over our heads even. All I ask is that we, you and I, know what we are to each other, and live that, sometimes.’

  He looked up at her. ‘You will always be what you are to me now, Maria, what you were that first night. There will not be anyone else. But we cannot live as you wish us to live, be as you wish us to be. It isn’t possible, and I should never have let it begin.’

  She took a step backwards. ‘You’re not saying this.’

  ‘Maria, there can be no future for us in this world. Even if you were to leave your brother . . .’

  She was indignant. ‘I will not leave Elias!’

  ‘I know you will not. So how does that work? Your brother will never lay down his pen, never cease to speak against the state until he is made to, and it is on me that that task will fall, one day. You and I both know it. And even if Elias were to be struck down dead this very night, it would make no difference. Your heart is as his, your mind as his: you would take up the pen he had dropped and carry on. You would collude with Wildman and other radicals as he does.’

  ‘And then you would arrest me,’ she said quietly.

  He shook his head. ‘No. No, I could never do that. And then I would not be who I am, and we have returned to the beginning of our circle once more. There is no way for you and I to be together in this world, Maria.’

  The sound of some animal rooting in the backyard, of a door creaking in the slight wind, made the silence between them in the small, whitewashed room unbearable. A teardrop that had formed on her lower lash slowly crept onto her cheek. The fire had taken, but still she was shivering.

  Seeker got up and went over to her, pulled her gently to him and brushed the top of her head with his lips. The desolation in her threatened to undo him.

  ‘Can we not have this one, last night?’ she said at last.

  He said nothing, pulled her closer.

  ‘Please, Damian?’

  He continued to hold her. His will was raging with itself inside him. He felt that his ribs might collapse. His head moved slightly, he took in the scent of her hair, brushed her ear with his cheek, then his lips found her neck and they stumbled to the bed.

  Fourteen

  Downing

  Downing regarded his clerk and congratulated himself once more on his ability to spot talent. He had known it in himself, seen it in himself, before others had, and that had proved useful. Lesser men of higher birth or greater influence had thought to make use of his abilities, while affording themselves the satisfaction of patronising him. So be it, he had left most of them behind, and now they sought his favour instead.

  But this young fellow had not the air of one who intended to be left behind, and that suited Downing well. He had spotted this Pepys’s abilities, his sharpness of mind, his power to charm, at an early stage, afforded him his patronage at Cambridge and brought him into his own service. There were rumours the fellow was too fond of the taverns around Westminster – the Dog, the Fox, the Swan – drinking over much and pestering any maid who could not outrun him, but he had never yet failed to perform any office Downing required of him, or to attend his master whenever required, as now.

  It was not yet light, and Pepys had been waiting for him, as summoned, outside his house at Axe Yard, by five. The city along the river was still breathing a dusky sleep, although the streets of Westminster were lit, the cavalrymen in Horse Guard Yard already looking to their mounts, the next duty of guards having their last half-hour sleep before rousing themselves to take over from the night watch.

  Across King Street and beyond the gate into Whitehall itself, a light would still be burning in Isaac Dorislaus’s office, as he finished his night work on the last of the previous day’s postal intercepts, but the corridors around the Cockpit should be quiet now, Meadowe, Morland, Marvell still abed, Milton perhaps just rising in his house across the way in Petty France, looking out onto a park that he could no longer see. Thurloe would still be safely swathed in the blankets of his sickbed in Lincoln’s Inn – Cromwell’s own physician was not sanguine about the Chief Secretary’s state of health, and that suited Downing’s purpose very well.

  ‘Is our business at the Exchequer, sir?’ asked Pepys, hurrying along to keep pace with his employer, almost slipping on the early morning ice.

  ‘No, it is not. It is in the department of Mr Thurloe.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Pepys, opening his mouth to say something else but, evidently finding nothing politic to add, shutting it again. Downing liked that about him too.

  Their footsteps on the stairs and corridors leading to the Cockpit, where the Council of State met, echoed in the stone silence. The guards posted in doorways and at stairheads might also have been of stone. Downing did not acknowledge them, and there was no flicker from them as the pair from the Exchequer swiftly passed to the corridors where Thurloe’s under-secretaries and clerks oversaw the security of the state.

  The captain of the night watch was an officer known to Downing from his days in the army in Scotland, and it was with no great difficulty that he and Pepys gained access to the corridor of the Secretariat. Entry to specific offices and stores was another matter though, for every door was locked, and not even the captain of the night watch had the keys. Had Downing been less righteous, he would have sworn, under his breath at least, but he contented himself with a silent curse on Seeker. ‘Who does have the keys?’ he demanded of the captain.

  ‘Secretary Meadowe, Secretary Milton and Mr Morland.’

  Pepys stepped closer and murmured to him so that the captain might not hear, ‘I believe there is also a set kept in the junior clerks’ room.’

  ‘Which is also locked,’ said Downing, beginning to lose his grip on his patience.

  Pepys cleared his throat. ‘Yes, sir, but each of the clerks has his own key to that room, and it would take only one of them to obtain the rest . . .’

  A brief flicker of hope appeared on Downing’s face before fading. ‘They are all in thrall to Seeker, terrified of him. They will not countermand his orders.’

  Pepys made a grim face. ‘And they are quite wise in that, I have no doubt. But there is one who is somewhat resentful towards him – I think he might be prepared to countermand the Seeker’s orders if someone more influential – like yourself, perhaps – were to make it known he wished him to.’

  ‘Spit it out, man,’ said Downing. ‘Who is it, and where is he to be found?’

  ‘Bridlington, sir,’ said Pepys, chastened.

  ‘Goffe’s nephew?’

  ‘His wife’s, I believe. The Seeker roared at him more or less in public, reduced him to the status of message boy. He is not well pleased. He is accommodated in his aunt and uncle’s private apartments. I can have him here in less than five minutes.’

  And indeed, less than five minutes later, Pepys was returning with the bleary-eyed and somewhat dishevelled clerk, who was still struggling to tuck the tails of a fine white shirt into his breeches. He looked terrified.

  ‘Mr Pepys has told you why you are here, I assume.’

  Bridlington looked uncomprehendingly and somewhat accusingly from Downing to Pepys and back again. ‘No, sir, he has not.’

  Downing glared briefly at Pepys. ‘I need access to the offices of Mr Thurloe’s department and to the file library.’

  Bridlington bit his lip. ‘Captain Seeker said no one was to . . .’

  ‘Captain Seeker is not here,’ growled Downing, ‘and there are urgent matters of state which will not wait upon an improvement in his humour.’

  ‘Hell might freeze over before such an event,’ murmured Pepys.

  ‘And,’ continued Downing, i
gnoring the musings of his clerk, ‘I require immediate access to certain papers of great import. I require you to bring me the keys to the offices of the Secretariat.’

  A genuine reluctance manifested itself in Marcus Bridlington’s frightened eyes and in the deepening pallor of his face.

  ‘Get me the keys,’ said Downing, scarcely moving his lips. Behind him, Pepys nodded encouragement and warning: Downing was not to be countermanded on this.

  At last Bridlington understood, and led them to the clerks’ room, which he unlocked. He then crossed to the small cabinet affixed to the wall opposite the door and unlocked it too. Not looking Pepys in the eye, he handed him the bunch of keys hanging inside. Downing snatched them from his clerk and stalked from the room.

  ‘What does he want them for?’ whispered Bridlington to Pepys, as they hurried along behind him.

  Pepys looked around him, and finding no one but themselves within earshot replied, ‘He means to find the name of Thurloe’s agent in Charles’s court.’

  Bridlington was fully alert now. ‘But why?’

  ‘Because the Royalists have something on foot, with their Sealed Knot or some other such thing, and old George there means to make contact with our man in Cologne and get the intelligence of it himself, and so the glory, when the plot is foiled.’

  ‘And will he?’ asked Bridlington.

  ‘Hmm, only if Mr Thurloe dies first, and takes half his department with him. But it will do you and I no harm at all to humour Downing while he tries.’

  ‘There will be none of me left to do harm to once the Seeker discovers it is I who let him have the keys,’ said Bridlington resentfully.

  Pepys clapped an arm around his shoulder. ‘Come, Marcus, be of good cheer. You had shot your bolt with the Seeker anyway; Mr Downing there is no more to be trusted than a hungry flea on a cat, but he aims to rise further in this world and it will be no bad thing for you to retain his favour as he does so.’